This question is as old as dual battery systems, and campsite power itself, with literally hundreds of options on the market for keeping your camping electricity flowing, starting with the simplest way to charge your setup being your vehicles alternator.

This works pretty great as a vehicles alternator can punch out an impressive 80-140A of current at 14V, which is more than enough to charge your spare battery which is up to a huge 1960 Watts of power only whilst the engine is running.

The issues many people have with running their alternator to recharge their camping 12v setup is the noise and fumes produced at camp, which have the undesired effect of upsetting even the most peaceful campers not to mention the massive inefficiencies of running an entire car/4WD engine to only charge a simple 12v setup.

With WATTAGE being a simple calculation of Voltage and amps, you can easily figure out your campsite accessories requirements by looking at the specifications tag provided with your 12v camping accessories or at your 240v “compliance tag” as is found on all mains electrical appliances sold in Australia.

The power consumption calculation is simple, as follows;

WATTAGE = Voltage x Amperage

A good example of the wattage of a 12v accessory is an Adventure Kings 60L Fridge Freezer, as follows;

WATTAGE = 12 Volts x 1.0 Amp

WATTAGE = 12 Watts

You simply multiply your wattage number by the amount of hours you will be using the appliance for your Watt Hours (Wh), because we run our fridge 24/7 the calculation is for 24 hours, as below;

12 Watts x 24 hours = 288 Wh (Watt hours)

Now you know that your fridge is using a total of 288Wh per day, you can now make sure your bush power camping setup can provide enough juice to meet your demands! By packing an Adventure Kings 120W Portable Solar Blanket you will provide a huge 120W of power going back into your batteries every hour which we can ensure is enough with some more quick calculations.

With all of our previous information we can figure out how many hours your 120W solar panel needs to have direct sunlight to provide a stable charge to your battery. By dividing your total Watt hour demand (in the case of just our fridge = 288Wh) by the wattage output supplied by your bush power setup, you get your result, eg;

288Wh / 120W = Total sunlight hours needed

2.4Hours = Total sunlight hours needed

With a minimum of approximately 9 hours of sunlight a day in Australia (in the most southern point on the shortest day of the year) you can setup your 120W solar panel and have STACKS of surplus power for running your 12v fridge all day long with over 1000Wh of possible charge provided in a day!

Not all camping setups are created equal, and when you start to include things like 12v campsite lighting for 4 hours a night, an Illuminator 5 bar camp light kit could be adding an additional 26.4Wh of power demand per day to your setup, and the list goes on.

When we head down the rabbit hole of ‘glamping’ all of the creature comforts of home like your high wattage devices like toasters, hair dryers and even the family kettle can ask much more from your 12v system, and whilst adding an Adventure Kings 1500W Inverter to your 12v setup will let you plug in devices from home, it will make short work of your spare power at camp.

This is where a massive output Adventure Kings Generator comes in – being able to supply enough grunt to run all of your creature comforts from home along with plenty of extra’s the range of bush power supply at camp has something for everyone.

If you need more information about setting up your camp power to suit your dream setup don’t hesitate to drop into an Adventure Kings Store or visit www.4WDSupacentre.com.au or call us on 1800 88 39 64!